Rent Check
Gilead has released its pricing plan for the drug remdesivir, focusing exclusively on the welfare provided by the drug in a plan totally foreign to almost any other market.
The Internet Archive’s National Emergency Library has been shut down, but major publishers are still suing IA in an attempt to do away with controlled digital lending.
When patents allow drug makers to charge an arm and a leg on certain high-demand drugs, that raises the opportunity costs of innovation in other less lucrative markets.
News and Commentary
Public Citizen, through an analysis of public funding agreements between Moderna and NIH, finds that the federal government may co-own a potential coronavirus vaccine. If this is the case, the government should license the technology freely.
A claim of copyright infringement by Guillermo del Torro’s The Shape of Water on the 1969 play “Let Me Hear You Whisper” brought by the heirs of author Paul Zindel will proceed after being dismissed in 2018. The infringement claim comes due to the fact that both works involve a scientist setting free a creature in a laboratory–something which should be allowable as the use of a literary trope.
Paul Levy of Public Citizen outlines the tactics utilized by copyright troll Matthew Higbee and his law firm to shake down unsuspecting copyright infringers. Even then the claims are meritorious, Higbee uses abusive tactics to pursue claims of infringement and will often drop claims when his clients are at risk of paying attorney’s fees.
In Techdirt, I use the publication of John Bolton’s book The Room Where it Happened as a case study for examining the incentives for publication and how copyright restricts access to information.
YouTube has been sued by Maria Schneider for blocking access to its ContentID system to smaller creators while benefiting larger rights holders.
Mike Masnick has a long read going through a recent ruling from a Federal Judge detailing the countless times copyright troll Richard Liebowitz has lied under oath and abused his power as an attorney to the detriment of his clients, the legal profession, and, most recently, himself.
New Research
A study from Health Affairs found that the delayed entry of generic drugs into the market through “pay-for-delay” deals–where branded drug manufacturers claim patent infringement against generic manufacturers and then settle in exchange for delayed entry–cost Medicaid an average of more than $100 million per year from 2010-2016.
Loading...